• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Banter Speech & Language

Banter Speech & Language

Sydney speech pathologists helping adults and children speak for themselves.

  • Home
  • Our Speech Pathologists
  • Shop
    • Speech
    • Language
    • Stuttering
    • Reading
    • Decodable Readers
    • Writing
    • Primary School
    • High School
    • Online resources
    • Business Templates
    • NDIS Templates
    • NDIS Training
  • Cart
  • Banter Supervision
  • Contact Us
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Receptive Language

“Huh?!” The many benefits of using Blank’s Language Levels framework to help your kids to understand language for school

David Kinnane · 20 January 2019 ·

Some researchers think that up to 15% of young school kids don’t have the language comprehension skills to cope fully with the demands of school (Hart & Fielding-Barnsley, 2009). Many of these kids struggle – some for their whole lives.

For most kids, home life plays a big role in helping to understand and use language (Morgan & Goldstein, 2004; Nation, 2005). So what can families and others do to help kids improve their understanding of language?

General advice is sometimes not enough

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when your child is struggling with language. Advice like “put down the devices and talk with your child more”, or “encourage your child to speak in full sentences”, or “read books with your child every day” can seem a bit general to be of practical help on a day-to-day basis – especially if you are doing all of these things and your child is still struggling.

Yes, children need to hear lots of language: quantity is important. But kids also need quality, real interactions with their parents, siblings, and others they care about, about topics of shared interest. For example, this is one reason evidence-based, shared reading practice can improve kids’ language skills.

Getting practical: tackling the mystery of language comprehension with a framework

Oral language comprehension – also called listening comprehension or receptive language – is deeply mysterious for the simple reason that we can’t know exactly what goes on inside someone else’s head. It can also seem very abstract to non-experts – language comprehension includes comprehension of language content (vocabulary and semantic knowledge), language forms (e.g. phonology, morphology, and syntax), and use (pragmatics).

So where to begin?

Well, it helps to have a plan. And good plans are based on tried and tested frameworks.

For language comprehension, one of the most influential frameworks was developed way back in the late 1970s by Dr Marion Blank, a developmental psychologist. Despite its vintage, we use Dr Blank’s model almost every day in our clinic to inform our approach to the assessment and treatment of children, teenagers and adults with language difficulties. And we’re not alone – many researchers have reported that Blank’s framework provides a good mechanism for child educators and others to enhance children’s learning (e.g. Elias et al., 2006; Hay et al., 2010). And lots of other speech pathologists use the framework, too.

I wish more parents, early educators and teachers knew about Blank’s wonderful work. (Hence this article!)

Blank’s Levels of Questioning

Dr Blank’s framework is based on the simple idea that young children’s early language and reasoning skills – while separate things – develop interactively to their mutual benefit. As a child’s understanding of words and the meanings of words improves, so does their ability to think and reason in words, which then further enhances their ability to understand and use words in more complex situations. In other words, stimulating language development can improve verbal reasoning, which, in turn can help more advanced language development: a virtuous cycle.

Dr Blank proposed that children learn language through social interaction, including through the way they listen to and speak with others while engaged in activities together. She thought that parents, early child educators, speech pathologists and others can improve preschoolers’ language and reasoning skills by changing the way they interact with kids, and, in particular, the way in which they ask kids questions, and respond to their answers.

The model is based on the idea that language exists on a “continuum of perceptual-language distance”. Kids first learn to understand and use language in very concrete ways based on what they see, hear and touch, etc.. As they develop, kids learn to use language to understand and express more abstract ideas (e.g. to make predictions, draw inferences, and to explain ideas and events that you can’t see, smell or touch).

Dr Blank proposed four levels of abstraction, from least to most abstract:

LevelLanguage complexityGoalExamples of activitiesExamples of questions or statements adults can use at the level [example items in square brackets]
1Directly supplied information
(Matching perception)
Children map language directly onto what they see, hear and touch. They use directly supplied information.Tasks where children match pictures, sounds, or sights, and label objects. Show me what you touched.
Show me what you heard.
Show me a [dog].
What's this called?
What did you touch?
What did you hear?
Can you find one like this?
Say this: [tree].
What is this?
2Classification (Selective analysis of perception)Children respond selectively to different aspects, attributes or features of the situation.Tasks where children comment on the colour, size, shape, function and other features of objects that they can see, hear or touch. What is she doing?
Find the one that is [big] and [green].
Tell me its [shape, colour, size].
How are these two different?
Finish this: [e.g. I like to...I want to....].
Where?
Who?
What things [e.g. swim, fly, run fast]?
Find the one that can [dig, jump, cut].
What is happening?
3Reorganisation (Reordering perception).

Language no longer mapped onto what they see.
Children look beyond what they see and rework the experience in accord with the language demands of the task. Tasks where children must summarise, predict, explain, or retell the information they have been presented with.Which one is not [an animal, tree, vegetable]?
Do this, then this...
Tell the story [e.g. about process like a bath being filled up, or a suitcase being packed].
What happened to all of these?
Tell me how [e.g. to fill a water pistol, or make a cake].
How are these the same [when they don't look the same, e.g. scissors and a knife, or a mug and a glass]?
What could she say?
How does he feel?
What else [grows, flies, sleeps]?
What will happen next?
What is a [car, hammer, frog]? (Answer to include attributes like function, location, category, colour, shape, etc.)
4Abstraction and inferences (Reasoning about perception)Child thinks about what may, might, could or would happen to materials, including why questions. Tasks where children must discern relationships among objects and events and explain the reasons for the relationships.What could we use [to fix, paint, climb]?
What could you do if [the house was on fire]?
Why can't we [fly, eat glass]?
What could he do [to dry himself]?
How can we tell [it's about to rain]?
What made it happen?
Why wouldn't [the boy sleep, the mouse come out]?
Why will [the girl go home, the firefighters come]?
Where will [the girl on the slide go, the ball go]?
What will happen if?

Note that many Level 3 and 4 tasks require children to make inferences – ideally skills we want kids to have or to be developing when they start school and start learning to read.

Using Blank’s framework to spot kids at risk

Blank’s Levels provide a quick way of identifying young preschoolers and school-age kids at risk. Most (although not all) kids start school with an ability to complete Level 1 tasks. But many kids struggle with Level 2, including many kids with developmental language disorders and kids who have had disadvantaged childhoods. For example, Blank’s studies show about 50%-65% of 5 year-old kids from well off households with educated parents can answer Level 3 questions – but only about 10% from disadvantaged backgrounds, including kids with average intelligence.

Many children with autism spectrum disorder or social language disorders have significant difficulties answering Level 3 and 4 questions.

How we use the Blank’s Levels in practice

When we assess a child’s language, we include Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 Blank’s questions. This can be done with a formal assessment tool, or informally using a book and pre-prepared questions of different levels of abstraction. We keep a close eye on answers that are incomplete, vague, irrelevant and of course incorrect to determine where the child’s current skill-set sits in the context of Blank’s model. This, along with all the other assessment data we collect (e.g. through standardised testing and narrative/conversation samples, etc.), gives us a good idea of where to start language therapy, which we can refine as we get to know the child better.

When working to help children with language difficulties, we usually aim to target questions at the child’s current level for about 70% of the session, and at the next level for about 30% of the time. This helps the client build confidence and gain mastery at their current level while challenging them to develop skills at the next level.

Can you use Blank’s Levels with older children, teenagers and adults?

Absolutely.

Blank’s Levels are a useful framework for helping older children and others to develop their language skills in any school, vocational, or university subject, and for any functional work task. It can also provide a useful framework to help improving writing skills.

For example, if working with a Year 6 student on an assignment about natural disasters, you could work through the Levels, as follows:

Level 1 (looking at a map of natural disasters):
Show me the brown crosses (showing recent earthquakes)
Show me the blue circles (showing tsunamis)
Point to the red triangles (showing volcanoes)
Say: tectonic plate.

What is this? [the Pacific Ocean]

Level 2:
What do all the different colours [on the map] mean?
Where are most of the disasters located?
What things erupt?
What things flood?
Find one that can destroy buildings.

What does the Richter magnitude scale measure?

Level 3:
Tell my the story of the Mt Etna eruption of 1669.
How was the Japanese tsunami of 2011 different from the Indonesian tsunami of 2004?
Other than tsunamis, what else can causes major flooding events in populated areas?
When do experts think the next big earthquake will hit California?

What is a bushfire?

Level 4:
What could you do if you lived near Mt Agung in Bali and saw it erupt?
Why did Australian tourists have to cancel their flights when Mt Agung erupted?
Why are earthquakes inevitable?
Why should nuclear energy reactors not be built near coasts at risk of tsunamis?
How can we tell that bushfires are becoming more frequent in South Australia during El Nino years?

How can we reduce risks to human life caused by natural disasters?

Here’s another example, targeting even more abstract language levels. If working with a Year 12 student to improve her essay responses about The Long Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Elliot in Advanced English, you could analyse the poem, working through the levels, e.g.:

Level 1:
Identify the people and objects mentioned in the poem by sight, sound, and touch.

What do you see when you look at the poem [e.g. length, number of stanzas].

Level 2:
What happens in the poem?
Who is the poem about?
Describe the objects mentioned in the poem by attributes, including category, size, shape, texture, function, location, parts.
Compare the key objects by attribute. How do they differ?
Where is the poem set?

In terms of structure, how is the poem different to [the other poems being studied, e.g. a Shakespearean sonnet]?

Level 3:
Sequence the events of the poem – retell it in your own words.
Take on the role of the narrator and role play how you feel.
Retell the life story of T.S. Elliot.
What would you do if you were the main character?
Immediately after the events described in the poem, what do you think would happen next?
How is the poem the same as some of the poet’s other poems?

Tell me how the poem is structured.

Level 4:
Why did the author write the poem?
Why does the author use [specific imagery] and [specific language] in the poem; and what does it convey to you?
How do you know that the author isn’t optimistic about the effects of industrialisation on the human condition?
How can we tell the author is concerned about urban alienation?

Evaluate whether and, if so, to what extent, the poet succeeds in conveying the character’s anxieties about his life and future in the modern world.

What about late talkers and toddlers?

A note of caution here. For young kids and others who are still learning the basics of joint attention and turn-taking, and for kids who are not yet speaking in word combinations or short sentences, asking too many questions – especially in a row – can turn interactions into interrogations, and shut down conversations.

Consistent with Hanen training principles, with early language users and late talkers, we seek to balance questions with lots of comments to keep the conversation going. For example, instead of asking “What’s that?” repeatedly when looking at a book about animals, we might follow the child’s lead, see that she is looking at a tiger and say: “I see a stripy tiger!”, then wait for a response from the child, and then praise her response.

Clinical bottom line

Marion Blank’s framework is a very useful tool to spot and help people of all ages with language difficulties to understand and to use language. It can also help parents, educators, and others working with young people – including people with or at risk for communication disorders – to pitch their questions and statements in conversations at the levels most likely to help young people to develop their communication skills.

Related resources:

To view our Blanks resources, visit our Teachers Pay Teachers Speechies in Business store for:

  • Blanks Level 2 resources
  • Blanks Level 3 resources
  • Blanks Level 4 resources

Related articles:

  • Help your child to fill in the gaps, join the dots, and read between the lines! (Improve inferencing skills for better reading and language comprehension
  • Developmental Language Disorders
  • Your right to know: long-term social effects of language disorders

Principal sources:

  • Hay, I., & Fielding-Barnsley, R. (2012). Social Learning, Language and Literacy. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 37(1)24-29.
  • Westby, C. (2017). Marion Blank’s Levels of Language Abstraction. Word of Mouth 29:1, 12-15.
  • Blank, M., Rose, S.A., & Berlin, L.J. (1978) The language of learning: The preschool years. New York, NY: Grune & Stratton.

Image: https://tinyurl.com/ydbdvk56

 

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Following instructions: why so many of us struggle with more than one step

David Kinnane · 13 January 2019 ·

‘Pick up the yellow pencil and put it into the green pencil case.’
‘If there is a green square on the top row, touch the orange square.’
‘Go the office and ask Mrs Lee for the portable projector, then go to Mr William’s room and pick up the power cord.’
‘Don’t go out to recess until you’ve finished your writing.’
‘Put your homework on the round table, your reader in the orange folders, put your pencils away, then come and sit on the carpet.’
‘Sit on the floor, cross-legged, and point to the picture at the top of page 6, then copy it twice in your workbook.’
‘To get to Martin Place Station from North Strathfield by 8.30am, you to need to catch the 8.01am train from Platform One. You need to change trains at Strathfield, Redfern or Central. Before you leave, remember to take your Opal card and $20 – take your velcro wallet with the chain attached to your bag so you don’t lose it. Ask your dad to give you the money. He’s either outside trimming the hedge or in his mancave having a nap.’

1. Following instructions: why it matters

The ability to follow instructions like those above is a big advantage. It helps to carry out learning activities and to succeed in tests. It can make you seem more diligent and responsible (especially to teachers, workmates and peers). And it can help you to navigate to new places and to deal with new situations (e.g. high school, or jobs).

Many children and adults struggle to follow multi-step instructions, including many people with developmental language disorders.

Why?

Here are two likely candidates, which often – but not always – occur together:

(a) Too long! (Working memory limits)

Many people with low working memories fail to complete long, multi-step instructions. In particular, children with low working memory abilities struggle to follow instructions in everyday classroom situations (Gathercole et al., 2006).

In the classroom, kids with low working memory:

  • often complete the first one or two parts of the instruction (e.g. putting their homework on the table and their readers in the folder) before giving up;
  • sometimes, complete only the last step (e.g. sitting on the floor); and
  • learn (over time) to compensate, e.g. by watching and copying what the other kids are doing, or doing what you normally do with the objects mentioned. Strategies like these can sometimes mask kids who have problems understanding instructions.

Verbal working memory is closely linked with the ability to follow multi-step instructions. Following long instructions (e.g. ‘First, touch the red one, then the blue one, then the orange one, and then draw a circle around them all’) requires you to hold all the detailed content of the sequence while monitoring yourself carrying them out at the same time. This capacity to maintain information while engaged in other activities requiring the brain is a key feature of working memory (e.g. Baddely, 2012).

Working memory supports the retention of activity-specific and classroom management instructions at school (Gathercole & Alloway, 2006). Working memory is closely linked with children’s abilities to perform task instructions such as ‘Pick up the red pen and then touch the blue folder’ (e.g. Gathercole et al., 2008).

It’s even harder for people to remember instructions when you have to remember the later steps for several minutes while you attend to earlier steps (e.g. ‘First, finish your maths questions, and then I want you to write me a story about what you did on holidays.’). When the time needed to complete the instructions exceeds the duration of your working memory (usually somewhere between 2 and 18 seconds), you have to actively maintain the instructions in your working memory, e.g. by rehearsal (retelling yourself the instruction out loud or ‘in your head’, over and over) (e.g. Camos et al., 2009).

(b) Oral language difficulties and disorders

(i) Vocabulary and semantic problems:

Obviously:

  • if you don’t know the names of colours, you will have difficulty following instructions that ask you to ‘Point to the blue one, then the red one’; and
  • if you don’t know your basic position words (prepositions), you may struggle to follow instructions that ask you to ‘Put your hat on the table, and your bag under your chair.’. (This is the kind of instruction where kids with difficulties will look at what others are doing.)

Many kids who are learning English as a second language, and kids with developmental language disorders, do not understand language concepts that many of us take for granted, e.g. words many of use in every day instructions, like ‘first’, ‘then’, ‘before‘, ‘after‘, ‘if’, ‘except‘, ‘when’, ‘unless’, ‘until’, and ‘while’. (As an aside, this is one reason, I prioritise words like these for preschoolers and young school age children with developmental language disorders.)

(ii) Complex syntax problems

Many people who are learning English as a second language and people with developmental language disorders have difficulty processing complex sentences. For example, consider these sentences, using the language concepts ‘before’ and ‘after’:

Before you eat your lunch, clean up your desk.
Clean up your desk before you eat your lunch.
After you clean up your desk, go and eat your lunch.

Go and eat your lunch after you’ve cleaned up your desk.

All four of these sentences mean exactly the same thing! No wonder many kids – and adults – get confused!

In practice, many kids with language disorders will do things in the order they hear the steps, which can lead to errors when the word order doesn’t match the order or tasks (e.g. ‘Go and eat your lunch after you’ve cleaned up your desk’).

Here’s another example:

‘Go and ask that boy who was chased by Mark to come and see me in the Principal’s office.’

This sentence uses complicated syntax, which is hard for many kids to process and understand. Many kids with language difficulties will dutifully go off and get Mark, rather than the boy who was chased by Mark.

2. Practical tips to help people who have difficulties with multi-step instructions

In language therapy, we help by:

  • working on language concepts frequently used in instructions; and
  • practising using items and instructions based on those used in the client’s real world (e.g. in the classroom, workplace).

To date, working memory training has had some success in boosting kids’ performance on tasks similar to those practised. But there is (as yet) little reliable evidence that it enhances performance on more practical everyday tasks (Jaroslawska, et al., 2016).

Teachers, family members, bosses, and others can adopt a few, common sense suggestions to make life easier for people who have difficulties following instructions:

  • Speak slowly and clearly when giving instructions. Avoid too much background noise.
  • Break multi-step instructions into single steps, e.g ‘Please clean your desk. Now go to lunch’.
  • Use the ‘When…then’ technique to replace complex instructions with simpler ones (e.g. instead of ‘Before you go to lunch, clean up your desks’, say ‘WHEN you finish cleaning your desk, THEN you can have lunch.’).
  • Use actions, modelling, pictures and/or videos to support everyday routine instructions. For example:
    1. Use actions to accompany your instructions.
    2. Show students how to complete the task by doing it yourself in front of them.
    3. Draw simple (e.g. stick figure) comics showing each step of the instruction.
    4. Make short videos of you carrying out the steps, e.g. on your smart phone, iPad or smartboard.
  • If students can read, provide written notes summarising the steps.
  • Repeat instructions, using actions words (verbs) as the person is about to carry out the step.

For a longer list of practical tips to help students with language difficulties at school, go here.

Related articles and resources:

  • ‘In one ear and out the other’. FAQs: working memory and language disorders
  • Speaking for themselves: why I choose ambitious goals to help young children put words together
  • 24 practical ways to help school-aged children cope with language and reading problems at school and home
  • Practising complex sentences with subordinate conjunctions including ‘if’, ‘when’, ‘unless’, ‘until’ and ‘while’

Principal sources:

Jaroslawska, A. J., Gathercole, S.E., Logie, M.R., Holmes, J. (2016). Following instructions in a virtual school: Does working memory play a role? Memory Cognition, 44:580-589.

Gathercole, S.E., Durling, E., Evans, M., Jeffcock, S., & Stone, S. (2008). Working Memory Abilities and Children’s Performance in Laboratory Analogues of Classroom Activities, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 1019-1037.

Image: https://tinyurl.com/y7gorc92

 

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

How to help your school-age child learn new words – the nuts and bolts of how I actually do it in therapy

David Kinnane · 16 March 2015 · Leave a Comment

Many school-age children have problems learning new words. In particular, children with language delays and disorders often struggle with vocabulary (e.g. Haynes, 1992).

So how can we help them?

Evidence-based strategies

1. Choose words the child needs to understand for school or in life. Choose words from topics the child is covering at school, or needs to cope with the current or future needs of his or her daily life. Look at the child’s curriculum and ‘real world’ language needs (e.g. words needed to get to and from school safely).

2. Repeat the target words lots of times in different settings. We know children with language difficulties benefit from hearing words multiple times in a range of places (Rice et al., 1994).

3. Help the child understand both the meaning of the word and the sound features of the word. The fancy name for this is ‘taking a semantic-phonological approach’. We know that children who have problems understanding new words benefit from treatments that combine meaning and sounds (Lahey & Edwards, 1999).

4. Teach both the oral and written form of the word together. They’ll need both forms of the word at school. In speech therapy jargon, my approach is a combined ‘semantic-phonological-orthographic’ method. But don’t worry about the terminology! Let’s talk about what it means in practice.

Let’s get specific! How do I do it in therapy?

Meet Jenny, a Year 4 student in a mainstream class. She doesn’t understand the word ‘edge’ – a word I know she will need to know to complete her maths homework as part of the Year 4 curriculum. Jenny has a moderate receptive (comprehension) language delay and struggles to understand or use new words quickly.

So here’s what I would do to help Jenny in language therapy, based on my application of the research and, in particular, the terrific work of Stephen Parsons and his colleagues (see below):

1. Write the word ‘edge’ on a piece of paper or white-board and read it to Jenny.

2. Ask Jenny whether she has heard the word before.

3. If Jenny has heard the word before, ask her what she knows about the word. In other words, find out what her prior knowledge of the word is.

4. If Jenny hasn’t heard the word before, give her a worksheet like this free Word Learner and ask her to think about it. Specifically, ask her to tell you:

(a) how the word sounds and is written:

  • the first, middle and last sounds in the word (‘e’ as in egg, ‘j’ as in ‘judge’);
  • something that the word rhymes with (e.g. ‘hedge’);
  • how many beats or syllables it has (1); and
  • how the word is spelt, and how the spelling is linked (or not linked) to the sounds (e.g. the letter combination ‘dge’ says a ‘j’ sound – it’s a 3-letter way of making the ‘j’ sound, just like ‘dodge’, ‘badge’, and ‘nudge’).

(b) what the word means:

  • do something physical, e.g. look at the room you are in and find ‘edges’;
  • look online for examples, e.g. in Google Images (in safe mode);
  • look at things that don’t have edges (e.g. circles and spheres);
  • think of other words for ‘edge’;
  • use lots of repetition with as many examples as possible (e.g. edge of a table, ruler, cliff, knife, etc);
  • talk about any idioms or metaphors that use the word, e.g ‘I’m on the edge’, or ‘edge of a cliff’;
  • if possible, link it to Jenny’s interests, e.g. ‘cutting edge’ fashion and music she likes; and
  • for more concrete words (especially objects), I would also use visual support to prompt Jenny to think about other features of the word (e.g. where would you find it, what do you do with it, what it is made of, what parts is it made up of, etc). You could use our free Visual Description Builder to help do this.

5. Combine sounds and meaning to define the words – take it in turns to define ‘edge’ saying at least one ‘sound’ feature and one semantic/meaning feature for each turn. Adapt board games so that Jenny needs to name one sound or meaning feature of ‘edge’ to roll the dice or get a reward.

6. Get Jenny to write the word in her ‘Word Bank’, along with two semantic and two sound features. Use pictures (drawn or pasted in) to help remind Jenny what it means. Jenny likes stationery, so her Word Bank is stored in a special notebook that she is proud to carry around.

7. If possible, work with Jenny’s family and teachers to reinforce the word meaning and sounds, and to give her lots of practice using it with different people in different contexts. For example, Jenny’s father could take Jenny for a bike ride on the weekend, pointing out the edge of the track, the grass, the road, the gutter, etc. Jenny’s teacher could add ‘edge’ to the class’ spelling word list for the week to give Jenny further practice writing the word.

Related articles:

  • Is your child struggling to read? Here’s what works
  • Kick-start your child’s reading with speech sound knowledge (phonological awareness)
  • The forgotten reading skill: fluency, and why it matters
  • 24 practical ways to help school-aged children cope with language and reading problems at school and home
  • 6 strategies to improve your child’s reading comprehension and how to put them into practice
  • ‘Does dyslexia exist?’
  • Are reading comprehension problems caused by oral language deficits?

Key source: Parsons, S., Law, J., & Gascoigne, M. (2005). Teaching receptive vocabulary to children with specific language impairment: a curriculum-based approach. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 21(1), 35-59.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/lhr4449

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Why can’t my child understand what others are saying?

David Kinnane · 14 July 2014 · Leave a Comment

Some children have problems understanding what their parents, teachers, friends and others say to them.  For example, they might listen attentively to a teacher telling the class a short story but not be able to tell you what happened, who was in the story, where it happened or why.

So what are the main factors and sub-skills that go into being a good listener?

1. Vocabulary: You’ll struggle to understand others if you don’t know the words they’ve said. Obvious, right?  Kids with poor vocabularies struggle to understand less frequent words.  But they also struggle to understand common words used in unusual ways – especially figuratively (e.g. “I’m filled with happiness” or “the light streamed through the window”).

2. Inferencing: When people speak, they (thankfully!) often leave out parts of the story, creating small gaps for listeners to fill in for themselves.  For example, I might say, “The supermarket floor was wet. She broke her arm. They’re going to have to pay up big time”.  I’d expect anyone listening to me to join the dots: to know that a lady I know (the “she” in my story) slipped on the wet floor causing her to break her arm.  I’d also expect a more advanced listener to know that the lady was now planning to sue the supermarket owners (the “they”) for substantial damages, hence my comment about “paying up”.  But to do that, a child needs to build a mental model or picture in their head of what I’m talking about – and some kids have problems doing that.

3. Background knowledge: To understand what someone is saying to us, we regularly draw on our prior knowledge of the world.  If you don’t know the background to what is going on, it’s hard to understand what the person is talking about, even if you understand all the words used.  For example, if I were to tell a story about how I saw an amazing near-ace straight down the T that was miraculously half-volleyed off the shoestrings cross-court for a clean winner to set up match point from love-40 down, you’d know exactly what I was talking about – unless you’d never encountered the game of tennis.  Many kids – especially from lower socio-economic backgrounds – struggle listening to academic language for exactly the same reason – they may never in their lives have encountered concepts like Paris or algae.  Without prior knowledge of the world and the background to what’s been spoken about, it can be hard to make sense of new information and to understand what someone is getting at.

4. Other factors: working memory and attention deficits can also contribute to poor comprehension, especially if in combination with deficits in the other areas described above.

The first step in helping children who struggle with listening comprehension is to figure out where the breakdown is (or breakdowns are) happening.  Your child’s speech pathologist, in conjunction with your child’s teachers, can help with this.

Key source: Hogan, T.P., Adlof, S.M., Alonzo, C.N. (2014). On the importance of listening comprehension. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 16(3): 199-207.

Related articles:

  • Following instructions: why so many of us struggle with more than one step
  • Secret plans and clever tricks: how young children can fool us into thinking they understand more than they really do
  • Language therapy works. But can we make it better?
  • How to help your school-age child to learn new words: the nuts and bolts of how I do it in therapy
  • Help your child to fill in the gaps, join the dots, and read between the lines! (Improve inferencing skills for better reading and language comprehension)
  • Too many stories, not enough facts? Free tips and resources to boost your child’s knowledge and reading comprehension skills
  • My child has ADHD. Should I get his/her language checked?

Image: http://tinyurl.com/prot7ag

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

So what do Speech Pathologists do?

David Kinnane · 16 February 2014 · Leave a Comment

That’s a question we get asked a lot. I’m not surprised.

Compared to other professions, like medicine or law, Speech Pathology is a young profession. The scope of what we do keeps expanding as more research is published on speech, language, literacy, stuttering, voice, and swallowing disorders.

Banter Speech & Language specialises in helping:

preschool and school-aged children to:

  • speak clearly;
  • understand what people are saying to them;
  • put words and sentences together to express their thoughts and feelings;
  • manage their stuttering;
  • read, write and spell;
  • compose stories and recounts; and
  • improve their social skills, like taking turns, and making friends.

 adults:

  • with voice and speech problems;
  • who stutter;
  • who want to speak more clearly for work or other reasons, e.g. those who are worried their accent is holding them back;
  • who are recovering from strokes; and
  • who have dementia (e.g. Alzheimer’s), Parkinson’s disease, or other disorders that affect their speech, language or memory.

Other speech pathologists work in hospitals helping adults to swallow safely, or newborn babies to feed.  Some work in rehabilitation and health centres, e.g. giving therapy to people who have brain injuries or helping head and neck cancer patients communicate after surgery.  And still others work in Community Health or in schools, with advanced skills and experience supporting clients with complex needs and disabilities.

At Banter Speech & Language, we know our limitations – no speech pathologist can be an expert in everything.  You deserve the best treatment available.  We know when to refer clients onto specialists in other areas – and we know many of the best specialists in the business.

Image source: http://tinyurl.com/lsse863

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Primary Sidebar

Get in touch

115 Queen Street
North Strathfield NSW Australia
(02) 87573838
hello@banterspeech.com.au
Monday-Friday: 8.30am to 5.30pm
Saturday: 7.30am to 2.30pm
Closed Sundays and public holidays

Shop at our store

  • Scatter Slayer Book 7 The Frightening Shy Child $8.00 including GST
  • Blanks 4: Language comprehension booster: Why did it happen? $4.99 including GST
  • Session Plan and Data Collection Sheet Session Plan and Data Collection Worksheet $3.99 including GST
  • Picture Description Scaffolded Sentence Maker Picture Description Scaffolded Sentence Maker: generate your own simple, compound and complex sentences $4.99 including GST
  • DOES (Auxiliary Verbs) Sentences Sentence builders: "Does" as an auxiliary verb $5.99 including GST
  • Christmas Season Language Comprehension booster Christmas Season Language Comprehension Booster $4.99 including GST
  • Subject-Verb-Object (-ing) (Auditory Bombardment) $3.99 including GST
  • Assess Exam and essay verbs Exam and essay verbs you need to know in high school: "Assess" $5.99 including GST

Store categories

January Featured Resource

  • Setting Goals for this Year: an Oral Language Workout $10.00 including GST

Recent articles

  • LSVT LOUD Speech Treatment for people with Parkinson’s Disease
  • My child’s speech is hard to understand. Which therapy approach is appropriate?
  • Free preview: How to Supervise Speech Pathologists Properly in Private Practice
  • Selective Mutism: key things to know

Featured Articles

What do you think about when you think about speech pathology?

Ask Us Anything: 17 things our readers and followers really want to know about speech pathology (but were too shy to ask)!

Language therapy works. But can we make it better?

Stuttering: what do we mean by ‘recovery’?

Lifting the lid on speech therapy: How we assess and treat children with unclear speech – and why

Too many children can’t read. We know what to do. But how should we do it?

I want to help my late talker to speak, but I’m stuck at home. What can I do?

Free Resources

Big book of child speech pathology answers

Getting ready to read at big school

Is your kindy kid really reading

The Scatter-Slayer Adventures

Free decodable: Book 1 of The Scatter-Slayer Adventures. The first in our decodable digital ‘select-your-sequel’ series for reluctant readers, aged 7-12.

Get our free resource

Subscribe to receive our blog articles

Check out our therapy and provider resources Go to our shop

Banter Speech & Language

Copyright © 2021 · BANTER SPEECH & LANGUAGE PTY LIMITED ·

  • Articles
  • Shop
  • Cart
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.